Letterkenny girls do the double on Ballyclare

Rugby

This week after travelling all the way to Ballyclare, both the U-15s and U-18s had resounding victories over the home team.

Ballyclare U-18s 5-51 Letterkenny U-18s

Right from the word go the visitors took this game by the scruff of the neck and never let the home team settle. Some amazing tackles by Mia Alcorn and Rebecca Bradley made sure that Letterkenny's line was safe.

Special mention must be made of Meabth McEniff who was was pressed into playing out half at a moment's notice and played as if she had been playing there all her life. The Ballyclare coach refused to believe that most of the Letterkenny players had only started this year, so well did the team perform together.

Although the visitors won the contest, it didn't come easy, and some of the girls clocked up 10-15 tackles with Alannah Boyle, Mia Alcorn, Jade Duffy, Tara Duffy to the fore.

The rucking of all players was outstanding, in fact at times Letterkenny girls set up more than eight rucks in succession.

Players are now beginning to trust each other especially when Chloe Wasson, made a neat break beating 2 players, was tackled close to the line, but left it on a plate for Alannah Boyle following up to score another try. As in the last game no one was a star, as everyone played their part.

The home team were always going to be under pressure as most of the Enniskillen team have rugby as their school sport and Letterkenny's three strongest players were unavailable. They started well but the lack of experience soon showed and they leaked tries when tending to bunch up in the middle of the field.

The new girls, (the whole team) stuck at their task and tackled and rucked throughout the match. The most important thing is that everyone kept trying to the end, and the team as a whole will have learnt a lot about how rugby should be played.

Credit must be given to Captain Hannah Callaghan, who played like a demon and never stopped throughout, ably supported by Meabth McEniff, Ava McAuley and Orlaith Walsh.

Having played this team 4 weeks ago and been hammered by more than 50 points, the home team were rightly nervous. However, they got stuck in and showed just how much they have learned recently.

From the kick off Kenny pressed hard and great rucking by the Duffys and Kelly Higgins set up a promising situation, unfortunatly when Sara McBrearty broke she had no support and the ball was lost, with the result that Enniskillen got their very sharp backline moving.

Emma Curran powered over from a short penalty but the referee brought the play back for a minor infringement. Play swung back and forth, with some brilliant tackling by Sara Bundescu and skipper Emma Curran.

Enniskillen were first on the score list when their winger went over in the corner followed by a try in front of the posts, which was converted to put them 12 up. But letterkenny were not finished and after some excellen trunning by Alannah Boyle and Sara McBrearty, Marybeth McBrearty dived over for what was a well taken try.

Back came Enniskillen with a hotly contested penalty, which they ran from 5 yards to score another try in the corner.

It seemed all over, but Letterkenny don't give up easily and after a session in which they had 12 rucks one after the other, Yasmin Sparks powered over to bring the score to within 7 points.

Kenny went on the attack again, and once again got their continuity going but it was not to be.

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